The year is half over, but there’s still time to salvage those New Year’s resolutions to get your business in better shape.

Original post by Geoffrey James

I can’t resist sharing this story with you. A few weeks ago, I ran a “worst sales manager” contest. You guys contributed some pretty wretched examples of the breed but nobody came even close to having a boss as terrible as this guy:

What did he do? Well, when his two sales reps asked for their commissions, he shot and killed them.  Here’s the story with all the details:

World’s Worst Sales Manager

P.S. Sorry for yesterday’s promise of something useful. This story was so disturbing, it ran all the useful thoughts out of my brain.

Original post by Geoffrey James

I almost hate talking about this one because I’m not sure I want the competition. Luckily, every niche or industry is different, so you’ll only be competing with me if we serve the same niche. While this method is nothing new, it is very tried and true. The one thing that consistently brings in large amounts of traffic and garners backlinks in the process is the creation of a good tutorial. Make sure the tutorial is somehow related to your niche. Even the most boring of niches can come up with some kind of interesting tutorial. Then do the following:

1. Use lots of photographs and/or illustrations. Document every step of the tutorial with a picture to illustrate the point.
2. Assume the reader knows nothing. Give them details about the process. Doing so helps the reader, makes your tutorial more linkable, and gives search engines lots of juicy text to chew on.
3. If possible, include a link at the bottom of the tutorial to another portion of your site where they can get more information, learn more, or expand their knowledge of the broader subject.
4. Socialize the tutorial. Once written, get it into the social network mix.

Once you’ve gotten good traction with a tutorial, your mind will begin to explode with new ideas. I won’t give away all of the ideas my mind came up with. A girl has to have some secrets, after all!

Original post by DazzlinDonna

The debate between hosted solutions and in-house solutions continues to rage in the CRM community. From a total Cost of Ownership (TCO) perspective, however, there’s never been any controversy. Hosted solutions are always more cost effective than in-house solutions. Here’s why.

Ima…Read More

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